Row over 9/11 novel at Canadian university

Controversy over a novel depicting post-9/11 hysteria is mounting at the Canadian university where it is set.

Author David Bernans was due to read from North of 9/11 - which describes panic and an anti-Arab backlash at Montreal's Concordia University in the wake of the terrorist attacks on New York in 2001 - at a campus venue on the fifth anniversary of the attacks, but approval for the event was withdrawn by college security services.

As the university vice president Michael Di Grappa explained in a letter on September 5, Bernans was sent an email at the end of July informing him that the request "had been denied by the university risk assessment committee".

This committee was created in 2002 after violent protests forced the cancellation of a visit by the former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But the university now claims that the risk assessment committee - whose membership and powers have never been made clear - made no attempt to censor the author, and was not involved with the rejection of Bernans' application to hold the event.

"In fact," continued Di Grappa, "this matter was never referred to the risk assessment committee." Blaming "a combination of human error and a booking system which needs to be improved", he said that Bernans was "welcome to hold [his] book reading on campus, as was the case from the beginning."

Bernans - who is a graduate student at Concordia - is now scheduled to hold a reading on September 11 at a smaller venue that does not require booking through the university system.

But the author is having "a hard time" in believing the university's explanation. "This kind of thing happens all the time," he said. "The risk assessment committee often bans controversial events at the last minute."

PEN Canada's David Cozac is also "suspicious" of the university's explanation. "Given the recent history of Concordia," he said, "the controversial speakers that have appeared and the friction on campus, I wouldn't be surprised if David Bernans had been censored because they were wary that some kind of incident would take place."

He is calling for the university to open up the workings of the risk assessment committee, a call flatly rejected by university spokeswoman Chris Mota "because when you're discussing risk that's not for public consumption".

She insisted that the risk assessment committee had nothing to do with the decision to reject Bernans's application. "We had no problem with his event then, we have no problem with his event now," she said.

Bernans is not convinced. "Concordia is not happy about the way that real historical events were portrayed in this novel," he claims. "It's pretty clear that the university used the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to target individuals they wanted to get rid of by fanning the flames of post 9/11 racism and paranoia."

He has kept all his email correspondence with the university after his experience of trying to organise events as president of the graduate students' association led him to suspect "something like this might happen". The university has failed to comply with his freedom of information request to see his files within the statutory 20-day time period.

Ms Mota just wants the furore to go away. "We are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused Dr Bernans," she said, "and we are doing everything in our power to ensure that nothing like this happens to anyone else."

But as sales for the book continue to mount, Concordia's peace may be troubled a little further.